libraries & philanthropy ii || wresting money from the canny scotsman: melvil dewey's...

Wresting Money from the Canny Scotsman: Melvil Dewey's Designs on Carnegie's Millions,1902-1906Author(s): Wayne A. WiegandSource: Libraries & Culture, Vol. 31, No. 2, Libraries & Philanthropy II (Spring, 1996), pp. 380-393Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25548442 .

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Wresting Money from the Canny Scotsman: Melvil

Dewey's Designs on Carnegie's Millions, 1902-1906

Wayne A. Wiegand

Beginning in 1889, Melvil Dewey repeatedly tried to tap Carnegie for

money to fund causes to which Dewey had dedicated his life. Between

1902 and 1906, however, these efforts accelerated and focused on two spe cific areas?spelling reform and an endowment for the American Library

Association of either a "library academy" or a national headquarters.

Dewey saw potential employment in both areas that would allow him to

leave his increasingly tenuous position as New York State Librarian. Ulti

mately, however, Dewey failed to attract Carnegie money for himself be

cause accusations of anti-Semitism by prominent New York City Jews in

1905, and charges of sexual improprieties by prominent ALA women in 1906 made him persona non grata with the philanthropist.

All his life Melvil Dewey's ambitions gready outraced his financial abil

ity to carry them out. As a result, he constantly pursued other people's money. In January 1887, for example, shortiy after he opened the

world's first library school at Columbia College, he asked the United

States Commissioner of Education to supply his students with free copies of all bureau publications on libraries. Three years later Dewey was at

Carnegie's doorstep. By that time Carnegie had published his famous

"Gospel of Wealth" essay and had donated nearly five hundred thou

sand dollars to build a library in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. As it became

apparent libraries would continue to draw Carnegie's philanthropic in

terests, Dewey could not resist. In the spring of 1890, he told Carnegie about his library school (which he had moved to the New York State Li

brary at Albany), and asked the steel magnate "to consider an endow

ment of $100,000 which the School needs & deserves." Carnegie politely refused. "I have taken occasion to inquire of several parties about the

supply of proper persons for libraries," he wrote, "and find that there is

no difficulty in getting persons naturally adopted for this work."1

A decade later Dewey was back. By that time Carnegie had retired, sold his interests to J. P. Morgan for $480 million, and begun living the

"Gospel of Wealth" by dispensing $225 million to various causes, includ

Wayne A. Wiegand is Professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison. Libraries & Culture, Vol. 31, No. 2, Spring 1996 ?1996 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819



381

ing grants to local communities for constructing library buildings. For

Dewey, Carnegie's millions were an especially tempting source of funds

to advance his causes?and his own self-interest. Two in particular

showed promise?spelling reform and the American Library Association

(ALA). And within the realm of possibilities for the ALA, Dewey saw two

opportunities as especially promising: the endowment of a headquarters and an endowment of a think tank to support one hundred of the pro fession's most important members. In all three of these scenarios, Dewey saw himself at the center. This paper is an attempt to recount Dewey's behind-the-scenes efforts to create for himself a permanent paid posi tion by tapping Carnegie's millions either for a funded spelling reform

movement or for an endowed ALA headquarters or library academy. As the public library movement spread west, many people hired to

staff these new libraries joined the ALA. Naturally they swelled the mem

bership; inevitably they pushed their interests at ALA conferences. By 1902 two camps had emerged. One represented large public and re

search library interests in the East, the other small public library inter ests in the Midwest, where most of Carnegie's millions were being sent to

construct library buildings. On the one hand, Dewey liked what he saw.

Many of the new public libraries were hiring graduates of library schools

cloned from his own Albany school. On the other hand, Dewey was con

cerned. The ALA was growing too big, he thought, and the agenda he

had set for it in 1876 was being challenged by a group of strong-minded midwesterners unwilling to follow his direction. To counter this trend

Dewey decided what the ALA needed was a smaller body to exercise con

trol and to give the association appropriate guidance. For Dewey it was not a new idea. As early as May 1892 he had unsuccessfully tried to con

vince the ALA to turn its "Council"?a body Dewey himself had earlier

pushed on the association to prevent western librarians from starting

a

rival organization?into "a kind of Senate" like "the French Academy," which had been established in 1634 to purify the French language and maintain French literary standards. At a conference six years later he ar

gued that the council should consist of one hundred of "the most

prominent and efficient American librarians."2 Again he failed to con

vince his colleagues. Then, in 1901, when the ALA elected New York Public Library direc

tor John Shaw Billings its president, it took one step closer to Carnegie's money. Billings had just landed a million-dollar Carnegie donation to build sixty-five branch libraries. He was also on the Board of Directors of the recently established Institute for Scientific Research that Carnegie

had endowed in Washington, D.C. When Library Journal editor R. R. Bowker asked Billings to contact Carnegie on behalf of the ALA Publish

ing Section shortly thereafter, Billings did not disappoint. At the ALA



382 L&C/Melvil Dewey and Carnegie's Millions

1902 conference Billings announced that Carnegie had agreed to do nate one hundred thousand dollars to endow the section.3

Dewey rushed to take advantage and pressed on three fronts. First, be

cause the Publishing Section would soon have use of about five thou

sand dollars from interest generated by the endowment, Dewey argued that "a part of Mr. Carnegie's gift" should be used for the second edi

tion of the ALA Cataloghis staff was preparing in Albany. The publishing board agreed and decided to allocate one hundred dollars per month to

employ a full-time assistant. Second, if Billings was able to tap Carnegie once, perhaps someone else close to him would be able to wrest a much

larger sum to endow the association so that it could hire a full-time ex

ecutive secretary to run its affairs. In 1903 the ALA elected as its presi dent librarian of congress Herbert Putnam who, like Billings, served on

the board for the new Carnegie Institute. In July Putnam appointed a

committee to explore the possibility of establishing a permanent ALA

headquarters and asked Billings to chair it.4

In anticipation of the gift, Bowker, who also served on the committee, offered ten pages of the Library Journal's November issue for a sympo sium on "A National Headquarters for the Library Association." Char

acteristically, Dewey led the response. "Our thoughtful members have

for a dozen years realized the need of a paid secretary to give his whole

time and thought to our interests," he began, and then suggested that

"other factors of home education?museums, study clubs, extension

teaching in its manifold phases?should all find their home in the great

library center." And the best place to locate this headquarters, Dewey said, was in New York, where it could work with a library school and de

velop close connections to the Library Bureau.

The hint was unmistakable; as New York State Librarian Dewey al

ready had the experience of coordinating the interests of librarianship with museums, study clubs, and extension teaching; he had been run

ning the nation's first (and best) library school since 1887; he had orga nized and, until recently, had been president of the Library Bureau.

Brooklyn Public Library director Frank Hill took the bait. "You lay your self open to attack . . . that if such a thing is to be, you have got to start

and run it," he wrote on 27 November. "I wish that you were so situated

that you could take hold of it." Dewey answered him three days later: "I

know of no work in all the world that would appeal to me so strongly and

to which it would be so hard to say no if a call came to do it."5

In his Library Journal article, Dewey had also concluded that, unlike

the Carnegie Institution, whose "field is for elaborate scholarly re

search," the new ALA headquarters had to promote "popular educa

tion." Here he hinted at what he perceived to be his third opportunity in librarianship?to tap Carnegie's money. In January 1904 Public Librar



383

ies ran an article he wrote entided "National Library Institute." "A na

tional A.L.A. headquarters seems . . . near at hand," he began, then

added: "there must be in close cooperation with it, yet as an indepen dent corporation, another center." Like the ALA headquarters, he pro

posed to locate this center in New York; unlike the ALA headquarters, he proposed to call it an "Institute" where librarians, trustees, benefac

tors, and laymen "specially interested in libraries and home education

may turn with confidence to seek information and advice." The institute

would house a professional library and museum, run a "distinctly na

tional library school," and function both as a clearinghouse for ex

changing duplicates and as the profession's social headquarters. More

importandy, however, it would provide necessary information to practi tioners, identify and investigate relevant professional problems, and

publish the results of this research. In short, it would largely do for li

brarianship what the Carnegie Institution proposed to do for science.6 In preparation for a meeting he had scheduled with Carnegie in New

York for 13 March to discuss another matter, Dewey sent the philanthro

pist a condensed version of his Public Libraries article and embellished it

with characteristic hyperbole. "All of our best men are agreed" that the

institute "is the greatest library need in the world," he said, but prom ised "I am not going to take your time to discuss [it] unless you ask me

some questions." Because Carnegie asked him no questions about the

institute at the meeting, however, Dewey chose not to press the issue.

Instead, he continued to prod the ALA. At the summer conference he

pushed to establish an "A.L.A. Academy" that would consist of "100 of

the men and women most efficient in promoting public library inter ests" who would be selected by the council to meet independently of

ALA meetings and discuss the profession's most important and pressing problems. The ALA delayed action by appointing another committee of five to report at the next

meeting.7 The primary reason Dewey met with Carnegie on 13 March was to dis

cuss spelling reform, and here Dewey's efforts to wrest money from him were already more than two years old. They began shortly after E. O.

Vaile, a Chicago educator much interested in the subject, wrote Dewey on 30 January 1902, that he had recently contacted Carnegie?a known advocate of simplified spelling?to underwrite the cost of a study com

mission Vaile was proposing for the National Education Association

(NEA). Vaile included a copy of his letter to Carnegie. Dewey picked up on Vaile's idea immediately and without first contacting Vaile simply usurped the initiative. First, he complimented Vaile on his letter to Car

negie, then added, "I have written Mr. Carnegie and shall see him at

dinner on Mar. 13 . . . but we very likely can't enlist him."

Dewey's letter belied his real purpose; he wanted to find out for him




self if Carnegie had any interest in a national commission on simplified

spelling, and at the same time he wanted to eliminate Vaile from nego

tiating with Carnegie over the matter. That same

day he wrote to Carn

egie. He praised Carnegie's commitment to public libraries, but

argued?again with characteristic hyperbole?that "the greatest service

that can be rendered the race today at moderate cost" would be "sup

port for a few years of an office where a first class man with needed cleri

cal assistance" could "answer questions and conduct a wise, conservative

campaign for the simplification of English spelling."8

Although there was later some confusion about what was agreed to at

their meeting, Dewey came away convinced he had obtained Carnegie's

promise to fund a central office in New York, an executive secretary, and

clerical staff for ten thousand dollars a year for ten years if Dewey could

put together a governing commission of twenty prominent academics

who would "keep in the background the overzealous reformers." In re

laying news of this surprising development, Dewey asked Vaile on 24

March to identify thirty people for such a commission. Dewey also sug

gested that he and Vaile stay in the background until the commission

was funded. He ended his letter on a different note, however. "The

greatest problem is to get the right man for the secretary," he said. He

suggested no names.9

When Vaile volunteered himself for the position, Dewey counseled pa tience. "We must not scare our

capitalist," he warned. In the meantime,

he worked quietly to set up a meeting of people he thought acceptable to Carnegie for a commission on simplified spelling. Included were Co

lumbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia faculty member C. P. G. Scott, Lafayette College's Frederic March, I. K. Funk of

the Standard Dictionary, and Ben F. Smith of the Century Dictionary. Butler

recommended adding Columbia faculty members Brander Matthews

and Thomas H. Lounsbury, and March suggested adding publisher

Henry Holt and George Plimpton of Ginn & Company. Dewey did not

seek advice from Vaile while setting up the commission; in fact, Dewey wanted the whole process kept quiet.10

The meeting was scheduled for New York on 21 February and in

cluded representatives of four dictionaries (G. C. Merriam, Funk and

Wagnalls, the Century Company, and Macmillan), March, Lounsbury,

Butler, Matthews, Calvin Thomas in his capacity as president of the Mod

ern Language Association, and, of course, Dewey, who had organized

the whole event. By means of a 19 February circular, Dewey established

the agenda. He suggested that the group avoid use of the word "re

form" in its title, avoid "entangling alliances" with publishers, open of

fices in New York, elect a board of nine to guide the commission, and



385

find "if possible for secretary a strong young man who can give his whole

time to the work."

Dewey presided at the meeting. All expressed agreement with the

agenda established by his circular, which subsequently provided the

framework for a series of resolutions passed during the afternoon ses

sion. Attendees then elected Butler chairman and Dewey secretary. By this tack he had thus maneuvered himself into a position to influence a

pet reform. He had exercised his organizational skills, and because he

showed a characteristic willingness to do the grunt work most people wished to avoid, he added to his own options for the future. If the com

mission was going to have a paid secretary to direct a national spelling reform campaign, he was properly positioned to entertain an offer. On

31 March he crowed to a friend, "Mr. Carnegie has just given me

$10,000 for expenses for ten years of an office for a vigorous campaign in favor of a simplification of English."11

After the meeting, Dewey forwarded copies of the minutes to Carn

egie and reminded him of his oral commitment to spelling reform. Car

negie's reply, however, took Dewey by surprise. "The vital point appears never to have been mentioned," Carnegie argued. Dewey had been so

intent on organizing that he had neglected what Carnegie thought the

central?yet simple?issue. "You said you could get the signatures of the

leading principals and professors of universities and the highest authori

ties to agree to use improved spelling of at least ten or twelve words," he

said. "The money I agreed to give as needed was to be spent in circulat

ing the knowledge of this fact." Where Carnegie wanted individual com

mitment and practical results, Dewey wanted an academic bureaucracy

organized from a central office that would legitimize educational

change in public. Dewey quickly responded that it would be difficult to

accomplish the results without a central office and that the existence of the latter would amplify the impact of the former.

But Carnegie would not yield. "You stated that you could get the sig natures of the leading educationalists," he wrote on 7 April. "Until that is done, I have nothing to do in the promises." By that time, however, a

story was circulating to national newspapers that Carnegie had estab lished an institute to facilitate "easy acquisition and worldwide use of

English" and that he had put one hundred thousand dollars in Dewey's hands "as expenses for ten years of an office for a vigorous campaign for

simplification of spelling." Dewey was caught in a dilemma; Carnegie would not release the money until his conditions were met, and when interested parties asked when the "institute" would get underway,

Dewey could not answer. The situation stalemated, and despite Dewey's

pleas about "the awkward position in which it placed me" Carnegie left




for Europe in May without authorizing the funds. The "institute" would

remain in limbo until he returned in the fall.12

Dewey was embarrassed. He tried to explain the situation in a 25 May circular that because "we have to humor his peculiarities," Carnegie's

gift would probably not be forthcoming until the end of the year. On 19

June he appealed to Carnegie again. How many names did Carnegie need, he asked; twenty of "the best men" would be better than "200

weaker ones." "Get the twenty names," Carnegie replied. "All depends

upon who they are. I cannot be hurried into this. I do not see how an

office is to be of much use." Carnegie wanted names; Dewey wanted an

office. Carnegie wanted a limited campaign; Dewey wanted a broad cam

paign. "He is a canny Scotsman who will have his own head," Dewey wrote to Funk. "We must get what we can and have a central office bang

ing away at [spelling reform]," he wrote to Vaile.13 In March, however, Dewey's luck appeared to change. Vaile had been

working closely with the NEA Department of Superintendence to en

dorse association use of twelve words, and at a conference in Adanta he

got it to recommend consideration of a commission for more active

work. Dewey, who had access to the NEA power brokers through Board

and Appropriations Committee member Nicholas Murray Butler, sensed

an opportunity. Vaile's move gave him a legitimate excuse to press Car

negie for another interview, to which the philanthropist agreed. The

night before his scheduled interview, Dewey wrote to Ben Smith. "Car

negie is shy of anything but pushing the 12 words for a beginning. He

will grow into the larger work later."

On 18 March Carnegie met with Dewey for over an hour. He again insisted he would authorize no money for a simplified spelling cam

paign until Dewey found twenty "prominent leaders in any field" to

pledge "to use habitually at least 10 of the 12 NEA words." Dewey ma

neuvered. If he came up with a draft pledge Carnegie approved, would

Carnegie authorize an expenditure of five hundred dollars to circulate

the pledge from a central office? Carnegie agreed. Dewey quickly put his

own spin on the agreement in a circular to spelling reform colleagues.

Carnegie "only asks as a condition of his first substantial check that 20

strong names be added to his as really using these words," he wrote but

added: "He is willing to pay all expenses of a first class man with needed

assistants to push the work." Butler was wary. "I do not like Mr. Carn

egie's way of doing business. He will have to be definite before I will

agree to be."14

Buder's response was the opening Dewey needed. He approached Buder with a plan and the draft of the pledge Carnegie still needed to

approve. Together they worked on strategy, but only Buder took the

draft pledge to Carnegie for approval in late April. The stalemate finally



387

broke and the plan Dewey and Buder hatched became evident at the

beginning of May when Butler attended the NEA conference. In re

sponse to Vaile's proposals concerning the creation of an NEA simpli fied spelling commission, Butler countered that the NEA establish "an

English Language Board ... to do for the English language, spoken and

written, what the French academy does for the French language." He

also identified ten people willing to serve on it. Dewey then wrote to

Vaile on 7 May that he thought that the NEA would vote for it and that

Carnegie would approve it as a vehicle for the campaign he offered to

fund. He did not tell Vaile that Carnegie had preapproved his initiative

at their late-April meeting and that Dewey had been in on it from the

start.15

Vaile sensed the ruse but miscalculated its origin. "It is an under

handed piece of business," he complained to Dewey. "The only thing for me to do is to crawl right down and get into a hole. I am amazed at

the readiness with which you fall in with Butler's plan." He was even

more harsh with Butler. "At this juncture you suddenly find time to

come out of your tent, to take advantage of the situation which I have

developed." His complaints were in vain, however; Buder had Carn

egie's approval of a pledge which?if signed by ten men named to an

NEA commission?would be followed by the release of five hundred

dollars for its organizational setup. And because Butler also held a seat on the NEA Board of Directors and on the Appropriations Committee, he had much more influence in the NEA than Vaile.16

It took Vaile some time to reconcile himself to this power play. He never did find out that Dewey had been behind the move within the NEA to work the compromise between Carnegie's wishes and his own

concerning the dispensation of Carnegie's money for simplified spell ing. And to make sure Vaile did not sabotage negotiations, Dewey slowed them for the remainder of 1904, awaiting a more propitious moment

when he felt secure enough to launch the new venture, perhaps in early 1905. And because Dewey

was willing

to wait, so were Butler and Carn

egie.

In January 1905, however, Dewey's position in Albany became unten

able. That month a group of prominent Jews in New York City peti tioned Dewey's superiors to remove him from office for disseminating anti-Semitic literature from a private Lake Placid Club he had organized in upstate New York in 1893. Petitioners quoted from its promotional literature that, from its origins, the club had denied membership to all

"consumptives and Jews." But Dewey's superiors were unsure of their

power to act, and because Dewey promised to withdraw from leadership in the club and stop issuing inflammatory literature, they decided only




to censure him. Later, however, they let it be known privately that they would have preferred his resignation.17

Dewey was politically prudent enough to know he would not last much

longer as state librarian, and as a result he continued to look for ways to

maximize his options for the future. Among them, he tried very hard to

keep alive his connections to Carnegie concerning simplified spelling.

Carnegie had never been specific about how his grant would be imple mented. That Dewey had something in mind was evident from a motion

he presented at a 3 May meeting of the group that he had originally con

vened two and one-half years earlier. "In the opinion of the conference,

the plan should include an office in New York, a paid secretary, a ste

nographer and such other assistance as may be needed," the motion

read, "and that the first work of the office should be to secure the adop tion of the Twelve Words by individual periodicals and publishers, and

publication of articles in promotion of the same line of simplification." Circulars from the 3 May meeting were sent out on the 18th, accompa nied by a preprinted "Promise as to Twelve Words." Correspondence listed Matthews as chair, Scott secretary.

' 'With the fund supplied by Mr.

Carnegie," the circular explained, "it is proposed

to organize

a board,

to engage a secretary, and to enter on an active campaign

to win wider

acceptance for these simplifications."18

While Dewey pursued simplified spelling as one way to rescue himself

from his situation at Albany, he did not abandon efforts to do the same

thing with the ALA. He continued to push his "library academy" scheme and admonished peers to sell the idea to colleagues because "it

can do no harm and may do a large good." At a council meeting on 1

April he argued that the ALA had to grow but that it needed a "man

ageable body" like an academy to discuss library problems. He then con

vinced the council to have him report at the July conference in Portland,

Oregon. The Library Journal objected to the project. An editorial said it

would create a separate body independent of the association that would

eventually usurp some of its powers. In addition, it would tend to main

tain older members in power and retard the recruitment of new ones,

countering the welcome trend which the ALA constitution had recently

inaugurated by making council members ineligible to succeed them

selves.19

Dewey was undeterred. In Portland he convinced the membership to

authorize an institute to consist of "100 persons chosen from English

speaking America" and stipulated that "the ex-Presidents of the A.L.A.

be the first members . . . with power to add to their numbers, to organize

and adopt needed rules." Its purpose was vague?"to provide

for study

and discussion of library problems"?but its existence was a

compli

ment to Dewey's persistence in the face of some opposition and much



389

indifference. "I should like an opportunity to prove to any millionaire that he cannot put a million dollars into any university or hospital that

will be so far-reaching in its influence," Dewey said later in the confer

ence, "as it would be if given

to the A.L.A. or its representation to orga nize a permanent headquarters that shall undertake the work that

belongs to librarianship." By this time Dewey probably considered him self properly positioned to become the paid executive secretary of a Car

negie-endowed American Library Association or (more likely) of an

endowed American Library Institute (ALI) run something like the Car

negie Institute in Washington. At its first conference meeting, the ALA executive board directed ALA ex-presidents to draft a constitution and define an organization for the ALL20 Dewey later became the ALI's first

president. With his conference goal won, Dewey joined friends and as

sociates on a post-conference cruise to Alaska.

On the cruise, however, he openly and persistently violated Victorian standards of public conduct towards women. For years Dewey had been

making many ALA women uncomfortable by becoming excessively fa miliar with them?mainly uninvited touching and kissing?in public. Some ALA women simply avoided him, and some endured it; some (like

loyal subordinates May Seymour, Florence Woodworth, and Katharine

Sharp) seemed to enjoy it. On the boat, however, Dewey exceeded even his own loose standards by squeezing and kissing women?several

against their wishes. ALA veterans Mary Plummer and Isabel Ely Lord?both graduates of Dewey's library school?decided they had had

enough and resolved to do something about it before the next annual conference. They became even more incensed that fall (by that time

Dewey had decided to resign as state librarian in December) when they learned Dewey was unilaterally and without authority or permission try ing to move "his" library school from Albany.21

If Dewey was aware of their plans, he seemed unaffected, but as he continued efforts to move the library school, he did not neglect simpli fied spelling. On 23 November he complimented Brander Matthews for

obtaining 550 signatures pledging to use simplified spelling of the twelve NEA words. At the same time, however, he asked "Have you not

yet found an angel from heaven for whom we are looking and praying to take care of the office?" In a 8 December letter to Ben Smith he was

more explicit. "After Jan 11 shall be my own master, thank the Lord, and

ready to do my full share for the good cause." Because "I cannot find

anyone we can get that I should feel like trusting without considerable

steering at the first," he added, he was quite willing "to give a good deal of time to helping" launch the office. By this time, however, the effort to obtain Carnegie's money for simplified spelling was proceeding along nicely without Dewey.22




Control of the movement had obviously shifted from Dewey's grasp.

Although he had successfully negotiated a promise from Carnegie to

fund a campaign for simplified spelling, as negotiations proceeded he

was gradually pushed from the center of action. It is possible that part of

the reason was Dewey's undeserved reputation for radical spelling re

form. More likely, however, Carnegie and other members of the spelling reform campaign wanted to distance themselves from Dewey after the

Lake Placid incident. Dewey was not at an 18 December meeting in New

York, at which Matthews, Smith, and C. P. G. Scott discussed the grant for a simplified spelling effort.23 Nor was he present on 12 January when

a committee of eleven voted to establish a "simplified spelling board,"

electing Matthews chairman, Scott secretary, and Charles Sprague trea

surer.

Still, Dewey was not ready to give up entirely. On 15 January he told

Carnegie,

I am at liberty now since my resignation Jan. 1 to say to you that

intense hostility [at Albany] made it impossible for me to take any

public part in the work and I had to get my friends to do it from

New York. They will take charge of your splendid gift.

Dewey obviously wanted to leave the impression he was the true leader

here, but that he had to make sacrifices in the greater interest of advanc

ing the cause. To Scott he wrote: "I will come to New York any time

when I can be of substantial service to Spelling Reform. I shall not shirk

any work that will help on the movement at this very promising time."24

But by that time he had obviously squandered his chances to lead a sim

plified spelling board supported with Carnegie dollars.

A series of incidents that same winter and spring also forced Dewey's withdrawal from librarianship and eliminated any further chance to ex

ploit Carnegie money for either the ALA or the ALL In early June?as he was preparing for the forthcoming ALA meeting?Dewey received an

ominous note from Florence Woodworth. "My advice is to keep per

fectly quiet," she wrote. "It is thought you will be 'cowardly' and force

the women to give their names which they say they are perfectly willing to do but which would of course be very unpleasant." The same day she

also wrote to Columbia University Library director James H. Canfield

and told him that stories about Dewey's behavior on the postconference ALA excursion were circulating within the state library community. She

was referring to rumors that Mary Plummer and Isabel Ely Lord (both of

whom were also irritated at the cavalier and arbitrary way in which

Dewey had attempted to move "their" library school the previous fall) intended to bring Dewey's offensive behavior towards women to the



391

ALA executive board and to request it to censure him. Woodworth ad

vised Canfield to see Lord concerning the rumor.25

The threat of a censure vote against him at the forthcoming ALA con

ference had the desired effect on Dewey. On 12 June he wrote to Can

field a lengthy letter. "I would not accept any library position in the

country," he said. "I prefer to drop out of all offices, committees, etc. as

rapidly as can be done without its looking like losing interest." That of

fer, he continued, also included resigning as President of the American

Library Institute. He recommended to ALA ex-president H. J. Carr sev

eral weeks later that Canfield ought to be his successor.26 Although he

did not attend the conference, he was naturally a primary subject of dis

cussion. Because of his absence, however, and because he had with

drawn from the ALA, Plummer and Lord did not push for his censure.

The end of the 1906 conference signaled the end of Dewey's active par

ticipation in ALA matters; it also signaled the end of his efforts to inter est Carnegie in the ALA or the ALI.

Dewey's efforts to wrest money from the canny Scotsman between

1902 and 1906 met with mixed results. On the one hand, he was largely responsible for getting Carnegie to commit more than one hundred thousand dollars for a ten-year simplified spelling campaign. Probably because he was such an unpopular figure in New York in 1905, however

(a situation he brought on himself), he was not part of the campaign. On the other hand, he met no success tapping Carnegie's millions to endow a national headquarters for the ALA (and thus fund a paid ex

ecutive secretary) or an American Library Institute. Because certain ALA members drove him out of the organization (largely because of circum stances he brought upon himself), he lost control of a constituency nec

essary to position and maneuver himself for a Carnegie grant. Probably the grant would never have come anyway, but had Dewey been allowed to stay in the ALA and at the helm of ALI, it would not have been for lack of trying. The American Library Institute, which Dewey had started and for which he hoped to get Carnegie funds for an endowment and by this means continue his influence in

library matters, survived for an

other thirty-five years. Because it lacked the kind of vision Dewey pro posed for it, however, it largely settled into an organization in search of

function, a club where ALA leaders traded nostalgic stories rather than framed policy.27

Notes

1. Dewey to Carnegie, 14 May 1890; Carnegie to Dewey, 15 May 1890, Box 91, Melvil Dewey Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Reading Room, Columbia

University, New York (hereafter cited as Dewey MSS). The standard biography




on Carnegie is still Joseph F. Wall, Andrew Carnegie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), but see also Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, The Politics of Knowledge: The

Carnegie Corporation, Philanthropy and Public Policy (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1989).

2. Library Journal 17 (September, 1892): 386; Proceedings of the American Li

brary Association Conference, 1898 (hereafter cited as Proceedings [year]), 154. For a

recent discussion of the French Academy, see Maurice Crosland, Science Under

Control: The French Academy of Sciences, 1795-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni

versity Press, 1992). The political landscape of the American Library Association in the first decade of the twentieth century is covered in Wayne A. Wiegand, The

Politics of an Emerging Profession: The American Library Association, 1876-1917

(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986), Chapter 4.

3. Bowker to Carnegie, 2 March 1900, R. R. Bowker Papers, Special Collec

tions, New York Public Library (hereafter cited as Bowker MSS); Bowker to Bill

ings, 29 July 1901, Box 17, John Shaw Billings Papers, Special Collections, New York Public Library (hereafter cited as Billings MSS); Proceedings, 1902, 9.

4. Billings to Putnam, 1 July 1903, Bowker to Putnam, 13 July 1903, as

quoted in memorandum from A. R. Boyd to Putnam, 21 July 1903, Herbert Put nam

Papers, Central Services Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

(hereafter cited as Putnam MSS); Putnam to Bowker, 15 July 1903, Bowker MSS;

Library Journal 28 (August, 1903): 592; (November, 1903): 757-764. 5. Library Journal 28 (November, 1903): 757-758; Hill to Dewey, 27 Novem

ber 1903; Dewey to Hill, 30 November 1903, Box 8, Dewey MSS. 6. Melvil Dewey, "National Library Institute," Public Libraries 9 (January,

1904): 16-19. 7. Dewey to Carnegie, 17 March 1904, Letterbook 103, Andrew Carnegie Pa

pers, Manuscripts Reading Room, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (here after cited as Carnegie MSS); Public Libraries 9 (May, 1904): 238; (June, 1904): 274-275; Library Journal 29 (June, 1904): 300; Proceedings, 1904, 257. See also

Dewey to Putnam, 3 February 1904, Putnam MSS.

8. Dewey to Vaile, 22 January 1902; Vaile to Dewey, 15 February 1902; Dewey to Vaile, 18 February 1902; and Dewey to Carnegie, 18 February 1902, Box 84,

Dewey MSS.

9. Dewey to Vaile, 24 March 1902; Dewey to Vaile, 24 April 1902, Box 84,

Dewey MSS.

10. Vaile to Dewey, 17 May 1902; Dewey to Vaile, 23 May 1902; Dewey to

March, 31 July 1902; March to Dewey, 22 August 1902, Box 84, Dewey MSS; But ler to Dewey, 29 November 1902; Butler to Dewey, 8 December 1902, Butler

MSS; Carnegie to Funk, 5 January 1903, Letterbook 93, Carnegie MSS. 11. Circulars, Dewey to "Language Board," 10 and 19 February 1903; Min

utes, "Language Board Conference," 21 February 1903, Box 87, Dewey MSS.

See also Dewey to Harris, 16 February 1903; Harris to Dewey, 19 February 1903; and Dewey to Passy, 3 March 1903, Box 85, Dewey MSS.

12. Dewey to Carnegie, 26 March 1903; Carnegie to Dewey, 1 April 1903;

Dewey to Carnegie, 2 April 1903; Carnegie to Dewey, 7 April 1903; Dewey to Car

negie, 8 April 1903, Letterbook 95; Carnegie to Dewey, 18 May 1903; and Carn

egie to Dewey, 4 June 1903, Letterbook 96, Carnegie MSS. See also Philadelphia North American, 5 April 1903.

13. Dewey to "Members of the Conference on Language Commission," 25

May 1903, Box 87, Dewey MSS; Dewey to Carnegie, 19 June 1903; Carnegie to



393

Dewey, 30 June 1903, Letterbook 97, Carnegie MSS; Dewey to Funk, 16 July 1903, Box 87; and Dewey to Vaile, 27 November 1903, Box 84, Dewey MSS.

14. Dewey to Carnegie, 14 March 1904; Bertram to Dewey, 16 March 1904, Letterbook 103, Carnegie MSS; Dewey to B. F. Smith, 17 March 1904, Box 85, Dewey MSS; Dewey to Carnegie, 17 March 1904, Letterbook 103, Carnegie MSS; Circular, Dewey to "Carnegie Spelling Conference," 24 March 1904, Box 85,

Dewey MSS; Butler to Dewey, 14 April 1904, Buder MSS. See also Dewey to But

ler, 23 March 1904, Box 87, Dewey MSS. 15. Dewey to Vaile, 7 May 1904, Box 85, Dewey MSS. See also Charles C. Wal

cott (Secretary, Carnegie Institute) to Dewey, 26 April 1904, Box 85, Dewey MSS. 16. Vaile to Dewey, 13 and 16 May 1904, Box 85, Dewey MSS; and Vaile to

Butler, 18 May 1904, copy found in Box 85, Dewey MSS. 17. This entire incident is explored in much greater depth in the author's

" Jew Attack': The Story Behind Melvil Dewey's Resignation

as New York State

Librarian in 1905," American Jewish History 83 .(September, 1995): 359-379. 18. "Minutes of a Conference on Simplified Spelling," 3 May 1905, Box 85,

Dewey MSS; Dewey to Carnegie, 8 May 1905, Letterbook 124, Carnegie MSS; Cir cular (marked "Confidential") from Matthews' Committee to "Dear Sir," 18

May 1905, copy found in Box 88, Dewey MSS; Dewey to Butler, 5 May 1905, But ler MSS; and C. P. G. Scott to Dewey, 25 May 1905, Box 85, Dewey MSS. See also

E. O. Vaile to Dewey, 20 March 1905; and Dewey to R. G Woodward, 23 March

1905, Box 85, Dewey MSS. 19. Dewey to "Committee on the Library Academy," 4 February and 2 March

1905, Box 7, Dewey MSS; Dewey to "Committee on the Library Academy," 28

March 1905, Reuben Gold Thwaites Papers, Manuscripts Reading Room, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin; Library Journal, 30 (May, 1905): 268, 289-291; Public Libraries 10 (March, 1905): 140-143.

20. Proceedings, 1905, 181.

21. Dewey to Matthews, 23 November 1905; Dewey to Smith, 8 December

1905; Dewey to Carnegie, 20 December 1905, Letterbook 123, Carnegie MSS.

See also Scott to Funk, 27 December 1905, copy found in Box 85, Dewey MSS. 22. These events are covered in much more

depth in the author's Irrepressible

Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey (Chicago: American Library Association,

1996). 23. Those present also agreed to call the new group a

"Simplified Spelling Board" because "we did not wish to be confounded with the more radical ad

vocates of fonetic reform." Brander Matthews, These Many Years: Recollections of a

New Yorker (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1917), 441, 443-444.

24. Scott to Carnegie, 3 January 1906; 15 January 1906; Dewey to Carnegie, 15

January 1906, Letterbook 124, Carnegie MSS; Dewey to Scott, 16 January 1906, Box 85, Dewey MSS.

25. Woodworth to Dewey, 10 June 1906, Box 7; Canfield to Seymour, 12 June 1906, Box 81, Dewey MSS.

26. Dewey to Canfield, 12 June 1906, Box 7, Dewey MSS. See also Dewey to H.

J. Carr, 28 June 1906, Box 7, Dewey MSS. 27. George B. Utley, "American Library Institute: A Historical Sketch," Li

brary Quarterly 16 (April, 1946): 152-159.



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